Spy School

In a lawsuit seeking class action status filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley are suing the school district, its board of directors and the superintendent for unlawfully using its ability to remotely access a webcam on their son's laptop computer, which was issued by the school district.

According the lawsuit, on November 11, 2009, Mr. and Mrs. Robbins' son was informed by the assistant principal at Harriton High School that he was caught engaging in "improper behavior" in his home which was captured in an image via the webcam. Neither Mr. or Mrs. Robbins nor their son were ever informed of the school's ability to remotely access the webcam that was built into the laptop their son was using in their home. The boy's family members have told reporters that a school official mistook a piece of candy for a pill and thought he was selling drugs. It is unknown if the school issued any punishment.

The Lower Merion School District has acknowledged that the cameras that are built into the laptops were remotely activated 42 times in the past 14 months, but only to find missing, lost or stolen laptops; as well as noting that security-tracking software has been completely disabled.

Today we asked our panel if they feel the Lower Merion School District was wrong in not informing students and their families that the laptops that were issued contained webcams that could be remotely controlled, or if they believe the tracking software was an innocent method of finding potential lost laptops. After reading how Shaun, Ryan, Jeff, Sasha, and Art weigh in, have your say by leaving a comment.